The political truth of the ant and the grasshopper...

[Liberty]

The ant works hard every day during the summer, building his house and storing food for the winter. The grasshopper, on the other hand, watches the ant with amusement and prefers to sing and dance, putting nothing away for the winter ahead.

When the winter comes, the grasshopper has nothing to eat and becomes desperate. He elects a president who promises that spreading the food around is good for everyone. The president demonizes the ant for being greedy and asks how he can live with himself when so many others have so little. An executive order is signed demanding that the ant turn over 50 percent of his food supply to the government. The grasshopper laughs and plays the rest of the winter, getting fat on the ant's assets. The ant is depressed and resentful.

The next summer the ant stops preparing his home and storing his food and instead joins the grasshopper, singing and dancing all day. Unfortunately, all of the other ants make the same decision. The next winter, with no one left to exploit, the grasshoppers and ants all die of hunger.

Aesop was a funny guy.

 

[rightwinger]

In reality.....it works like this

The worker ants toil all summer in the hot sun gathering food while the bigwig ant screams at them and tells them they are not working hard enough. Come winter, the bigwig ant takes 90% of the food and leaves 10% for the worker ants to fight over.

In order to keep the worker ants from complaining, the bigwig ant points to a worker ant who is sick and says.."why should he get as much food as you?" The other worker ants turn on the sickly ant and force him from the nest.

 

[rightwinger]

One way to ‘see’ the distribution of wealth in the U.S. is to imagine a group of 100 people who have a $100 between them. Evenly distributed each would have one dollar of wealth. Alas, that is far from the actual distribution. According to the most recent study, Currents and Undercurrents, by the Survey of Consumer Finance (Federal Reserve, Department of Treasury, 2006) wealth is distributed accordingly:

50 individuals at the bottom have a nickel. ($0.05 times 50 = $2.50)

The next 40 each have $0.70 of wealth (40 times $0.70 - $28.00).

The next 9 each have $4.00 of wealth (nine times $4.00 = $36.00)

The last richest individual has $33.40 (one time $33.40).



Read more: See the Distribution of Wealth in US (McCain, Obama, cost) - Politics and Other Controversies -Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Conservatives, Liberals, Third Parties, Left-Wing, Right-Wing, Congress, President - City-Data Forum